


Season of Glass/Primary Colors

by chanderson



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Blood, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-John's murder, References to Depression, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 06:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15902619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chanderson/pseuds/chanderson
Summary: Grief in technicolor.Paul's reaction to Yoko's album Season of Glass.





	Season of Glass/Primary Colors

**Author's Note:**

> This is about Yoko's album Season of Glass, featuring a photo of the blood-stained glasses John was wearing the night he died. You can listen to it [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfB8aqDUqbU) It's actually very sad and beautiful.
> 
> Super short and very angsty. 
> 
> Enjoy, friends.

**Red**

The album cover makes him sick to his stomach. He can’t look at it for too long without tasting something acidic in the back of his throat. That ugly, jarring red, stark against the nearly-colorless background.

He hates that he likes it. Her voice is sweet and clear, achingly honest in a way Paul can’t allow himself to be. He has to dress himself up with pretty melodies and vague lyrics, swaddling his inner core where all his nastiest, weakest emotions lie. 

Lying listlessly on his music room floor, he loses himself in the aching saxophone and her childlike voice. He holds the album sleeve above his head and forces himself to stare at the blood splattered across the left lens of John’s glasses like some sick stained-glass window. The blood is thick and congealed along the nose bridge; a few smudges dot the opaque frame on the right. 

He holds it so close that the image blurs into nothingness, then pulls it back until his eyes re-adjust and he can study it all over again.

When he hears Sean’s voice on the album it makes him so angry that he’s dizzy. The way Sean croons the word ‘daddy’ feels like a thousand knives stabbing Paul right in the chest. He groans a guttural sound that travels up through his gut, and rolls over onto his hands and knees, body convulsing as he dry heaves. 

That night he tiptoes out of bed with Linda and goes to James’ room, standing in the doorway and gazing at his beautiful, darling boy. He slides under the duvet and tentatively holds James in his arms, suddenly acutely aware that all of it could end tomorrow. He startles when James shifts in his arms and asks, still half asleep, why he’s crying. 

**Yellow**

Paul read somewhere that Van Gogh ate yellow paint because he thought it would get the happiness inside of him. 

During the long nights when Paul thinks he may never sleep again, his whiskey sometimes catches the light and shines a rich, golden yellow. Maybe alcohol is his yellow paint. 

Except, when it comes back up the next morning in the toilet or shower or sink or trash can, it doesn’t look quite as yellow, and the poetic nature of it all is lost on him.

One day he’s locked in his attic room painting, and he dabs his finger in the glob of bright, chirpy yellow. It’s bitter and chemical on his tongue, and he immediately makes a hard sound in his throat and spits it out, raking his fingers across his tongue. 

He decides he’ll stick to the whiskey. 

**Blue**

People always talk about feeling blue, but Paul never really understood what they meant. Even after The Beatles, in the darkest days of his depression, he never felt particularly blue. It was more of a muted gray, like a rainy winter sky. 

But the world sans Lennon is most definitely blue. 

It’s a soul-sucking blue like the deepest, darkest part of the ocean where normal life is unsustainable. It’s cold and clammy and horribly, tragically lonely. 

He walks around and half expects to leave stains of blue in his wake. No amount of golden whiskey or scarlet anger will ever cover it up. 

So he keeps on putting one foot in front of the other and hopes that one day all the colors will mix together into one big, ugly mess that he can studiously ignore. 

For now, he closes his eyes and listens to Yoko and imagines himself on a stage all alone, singing to his John. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was feeling emo about John and decided to write this?? Also the Season of Glass album cover has always been very disturbing to me, which I'm sure is the point of it, so I can't even imagine how it feel to be close to John and have to see it. 
> 
> Anyway, feel free to comment and let me know what you thought! 
> 
> I'd also love to hear y'all's thoughts on Season of Glass/Yoko's [history with putting John's death on display.](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1180887/Yokos-new-Lennon-exhibition-features-bloody-clothes-worn-night-shot.html) I know this isn't the most Yoko-friendly place, but it's definitely an interesting thing to think about.
> 
> Also I love writing these flash fiction type things, so if you have something you’d like to see, drop a rec in the comments and I may write it! It’s great practice for me :-)


End file.
